1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a fixing device and an electrophotographic image forming apparatus, such as a copier, a printer, a facsimile machine, or a multifunction machine combining the functions of at least two of these apparatuses.
2. Related Art
A typical electrophotographic image forming apparatus includes a fixing device that includes a fixing member and a pressure member for forming a fixing nip, receives a recording medium (i.e., sheet) carrying an unfixed toner image and fed to the fixing nip, and fixes the unfixed toner image on the recording medium with heat and pressure. If recording media of a predetermined size in the width direction of the fixing member pass through this type of fixing device, the side edges of the recording media pass through the same positions. If most of recording media used in the image forming apparatus have the same size, therefore, the side edges of the recording media mostly pass through the same positions on the fixing member. The edges of recording media are burred in a cutting process, and the burred edges of the recording media passing through the same positions on the fixing member damage portions of a surface of the fixing member through which the burred edges pass. As a result, image defects such as streaky unevenness in density appear in the image, degrading the image quality.
To address the above-described issue, the fixing device may be configured to include a rubbing member capable of grinding and restoring the surface of the fixing member damaged by the edges of the recording media.
The rubbing member provided in the fixing device, however, increases the size of the fixing device and thus the overall size of the image forming apparatus. Further, the rubbing member has a relatively short lifespan with the restoration performance thereof degraded with time. It is therefore desirable to periodically replace the rubbing member with a new one, and therefore a fixing device allowing easy replacement of the rubbing member is desired.